


Happy Twelfth

by Ray_Writes



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 11:43:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: It's that time of year again, and Ryan is enlisted to help.





	Happy Twelfth

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I know this is a bit different from my usual, but seeing as I did a couple more typical Doctor/Donna Christmas fics last year, I thought I'd go a little outside the box with this one. Sadly that means RTD's dumb ending for Donna is still a thing in this fic, but that isn't going to stop the Doctor from honoring Biodamp Day aka Christmas Eve. Hopefully you enjoy!

Every so often, they wound up somewhere that didn’t need saving and got to take a break. Today, he and Yaz had rolled their trousers up to the knees in order to wade in the shallows of the Coranae Coves. Graham was supposedly sunbathing under an umbrella, and who knew where the Doctor had gotten off to.

Yaz swished one leg around in the water, seeming to enjoy to ripples it produced. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, what’s that?”

“What?” Ryan looked around, wondering if perhaps they weren’t as alone in the water as they’d assumed.

She lifted her foot out of the water, clutching a small, round thing between her toes. Yaz plucked it up with her fingers and showed it to him.

“I think it’s a pearl.”

“Yeah, but it’s all red. Hang on.” He bent down and squinted at the sand, then scooped up a few more. “There’s a green one, a blue, purple.”

“Yeah, I wonder how that happened?”

“The Doctor’ll know.” Ryan turned and walked up to shore. He spotted her standing on some rocks staring at nothing. She tended to do that.

“Hey, Doctor, look,” called Ryan. 

“What’ve we got, Ryan?” 

She clambered down off the rocks, and he walked up to her with his palms held out. “They’re all sorts of different colors.”

She smiled. “Ah, that’ll be the different minerals in the sediment staining them over the years. You can actually tell how old each one is based on the color.”

“Awesome. They’d make wicked jewelry, yeah? My nan would’ve loved one.” He could picture her wearing them around her neck or threading a few into her hair. Either that or she’d have them in a bowl with one of her ceramic frogs perched on top.

The Doctor gasped. “Pearls! Oh, I nearly forgot! Thank you, Ryan,” she said, reaching to touch his arm briefly. Then she checked her watch. “It’s nearly time, too.”

“For what?”

She didn’t answer, but instead leaned forward and asked, “Do you think you could show me where you found these?”

—-

After he and the Doctor had collected a number of the colorful pearls, they all returned to the TARDIS and the Doctor shut herself in her room. Or what he assumed was her room. None of them had actually seen it.

“How many of those pearls did she collect?” His grandad asked.

“I dunno. She kept stuffing ‘em in her pockets.”

Yaz shrugged. “Guess we’ll see when she comes out.”

She left a little while after to go on one of her strolls of the TARDIS corridors, and his grandad retired to his room for a nap. Ryan returned to his new hobby of studying the TARDIS console. He figured if he could memorize each and every button and switch and give them a corresponding name in his head, he might have more of an idea what order everything got pressed and pulled in to fly it.

He’d made it round the one side of the console when the Doctor came bounding into the room. “There’s the man. Ryan Sinclair!”

“What’s up?”

“I need your help. You know those little shops and things that are set up for a day or so and then go away?”

He thought that description over for a moment. “A Pop-up?”

“Yeah! A pop-up!” The Doctor agreed. “Would you help me set one of those up?”

Ryan shrugged. “Sure. Where?”

“West London. Borough of Hounslow.”

His face scrunched up. “What’s there?”

“We’ll be there!” The Doctor answered. She set upon the controls, and Ryan hung on as they went barreling towards West London.

They landed right for once, so the Doctor led him quite a ways to the edge of what looked to be a little Christmas market that had sprung up on one of the streets.

“What day is it?”

“Christmas Eve, 2018,” the Doctor answered promptly. “Twelve years, now,” she added in a mutter to herself Ryan wasn’t sure he was meant to have heard. “This looks like a good spot. So, we’ll need a little stand and some chairs. I’ll grab the chairs. There should be some wood to build the stand in the TARDIS. Have to use nails and hammer I’m afraid,” the Doctor added as she glanced at the sonic in her hand. “This still doesn’t do wood. Was hoping the Stenza tech might’ve fixed that problem.”

“I’ll get the wood,” Ryan decided.

He set to work on building their stand, glad to have a chance to work with his hands even if it wasn’t strictly mechanics. It wasn’t the most beautiful thing in the world, but it’d stay up.

“Nicely done, Ryan,” the Doctor declared as she arrived with two chairs. She also had several multicolored pearls slung over her arms. They were strung together on different strings. Necklaces, bracelets, that sort of stuff.

“We need money?” He guessed.

“No, not quite.” The Doctor arranged the pearl jewelry on the flat surface of their stand and sat down, then patted the seat next to her. “Stakeout time.”

They waited and waited, for what Ryan didn’t know. He was glad he’d thought to go in for his parka, though. A fed came by, but the Doctor showed off their psychic paper permit and that got them left alone. Most people were leaving them alone, actually, so Ryan took out his phone.

He had a text from Yaz.  _ Did we land somewhere? _

Ryan wrote back.  _ Yeah, but it’s so boring. Don’t bother _

“There!”

Ryan gave a start in his chair, but by the time he’d looked up from his phone the Doctor had already left her chair.

“Madame? Madame!”

She was flagging down a redhead making her way to the market who was looking at the Doctor like she was half mad. That was the normal face people wore around the Doctor, though.

“Why’d you call me Madame?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say you looked single,” the Doctor said with a wide grin. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, too, like she couldn’t be more excited to be talking to this one random woman. “Also, I thought you just might have a keen eye for jewelry.”

She gestured with a grand wave of her arm to their wares, so Ryan put on his best customer service smile.

“What are they? Mardi Gras beads?” The woman asked.

“They’re pearls,” he told her. “Got ‘em right from the cove.”

She eyed the colorful pearls doubtfully. “My mum would call these so tacky. Wouldn’t work as a gift.”

“Well, I think they’d look lovely on you,” the Doctor said, and sounded as though she really meant it, too.

The woman didn’t seem to know how to answer that, and eventually stammered, “Alright, I’ll take one. But only cos they look cheap. Wouldn’t want to put you out for Christmas.” She reached for her purse. “How much?”

Ryan thought to spout off a number, but the Doctor beat him to it. “Absolutely free. Merry Christmas.”

The woman gaped at her. “Are you joking?”

“Nope! You can even wear one to go. Here, let me help you.” She grabbed up a necklace and was soon standing behind the woman, lifting her hair to one side so she could fasten the clasp.

“It’s so strange how this keeps happening. Every year, right before Christmas, somebody’s trying to give me things,” the woman told them. “There was an old Scottish bloke for a while, and then some young fella in a bow tie before him. Just so strange,” she repeated with a little laugh. “I mean, why me?”

The Doctor gave a huge, joyful shrug and stepped back, releasing the woman’s hair. “‘Tis the season, I suppose.”

“Well, what do we think?” The woman asked, looking at each of them.

“Brilliant,” the Doctor enthused.

Ryan gave an approving nod as well, watching as the Doctor used some sleight of hand to drop what he was pretty sure were matching earrings in the woman’s bag. If he’d tried anything like that, they’d probably be spilled on the pavement.

“Do you have a jar for tips or something? I really don’t think I can just take this.”

Much as he might have liked to answer otherwise, he was sensing the theme here. “Nah, we’re barred from taking donations.”

“Well, thank you. Really. I- I don’t know what to say.” She smiled at the pair of them. “Merry Christmas.”

“You, too,” said the Doctor, and Ryan echoed her.

The woman turned and walked towards the market, glancing back at them once before disappearing into the small crowd.

The Doctor watched her walk away, even leaning a bit to keep her in sight. Then she sighed and turned back to face him.

“Okay, Ryan, we can un-pop. Pop-down? What’s the opposite of popping up?”

“Dunno.”

“Ah well. You know what I mean.”

They set to work dismantling his stand, which went easier since the sonic could work on the nails. Once the pearls were stuffed back in pockets and the wooden boards stacked up on top of each other, they each took one end of the pile and began carrying it back to the TARDIS.

“So who was the lady? That’s who we did all this stuff for, right?”

“Her name’s Donna,” the Doctor told him. “She’s a friend. My best friend, a long time ago. My mate.”

He frowned. “Why didn’t she recognize you?”

“Well, I had brown hair and wore pinstripes back then,” the Doctor said as if it should explain anything.

“But you didn’t tell her it was you, either. Why wouldn’t you want your mate knowing it’s you?”

The Doctor didn’t answer for a while. “It’s a bit complicated, Ryan.”

“Did you have a falling out?”

“Sort of.”

“Is this how you’re making it up to her?”

“Sort of,” was the answer again. They’d reached the TARDIS, and it was a bit of a trick to fit the wood back into the little side room he’d got it from.

“Plus, well,” the Doctor continued in a wistful sort of voice. “It’s our anniversary.”

Ryan dropped his end of the wood.


End file.
